The brief
Choose a piece of reportage or documentary illustration from one of the illustrators on the list above or from the website www.reportage.org.
Compare the image to a photograph of a similar subject matter. Answer these questions:
- What is each image expressing, describing, or communicating?
- Which image do you think is most memorable?
- Does one image seem more truthful, and why?
- Which image would you be more likely to notice if it was in a magazine or newspaper, and why?
My approach
I am choosing an Illustration by Laura Carlin for this research task because I can relate to this image on a personal level. I remember visiting my grandparents in Rhodesia towards the end of the Rhodesian Bush War (1964 – 1979). I can still remember the adults talking about the war and the buildings and houses destroyed and burnt. I haven’t thought much about it until today. My grandfather and uncle both fought in the bush war during that time, so terrorists were very real to me at a very young age.
The New York Times commissioned reportage illustrator Laura Carlin to illustrate an editorial based on the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 in West Africa, Liberia.
Laura Carlin (illustrator) and Helene Cooper (author)
The editorial in The New York Times Magazine (April 6, 2008), was based on a memoir by Helene Cooper called The Girl I was at Sugar Beach.
Helene Cooper is a Liberian-born American journalist and Pentagon correspondent for The New York Times. The Girl I was at Sugar Beach is about the Liberian coup of 1980 and its effect on the Coopers, who were socially and politically elite descendants of the free people of colour from the United States who colonised Liberia in the 19th century. (Wikipedia, 2024)
Civil War in Liberia (2003)
From 1997 to 2003, the Taylor regime oversaw the further disintegration of the Liberian state and its social order. By 1999, a new rebel movement formed by Liberian exiles in West Africa, the United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), began attacking government forces, plunging Liberia back into a full-blown civil war. By 2003, another armed group, the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), emerged in an effort to unseat Taylor from power. Human casualties continued to rise and by summer of 2003, Taylor’s government controlled less than a third of the country. (CJA, 2024)
Helene Cooper’s idyllic childhood was shattered by a violent civil war. Her return from exile revealed what she had, and had not, left behind.
Laura Carlin’s work has been described as “combining childlike naivety with sentimental awareness.
Laura Carlin mentioned in a recent interview, “Like so many illustration students, I felt pressured/obsessed by the need to find my own style.’ It took me a while to realise that it’s not about a style but working out what and how you want to communicate through your images. It took me a long time. Mainly getting rid of years of thinking that a good drawing was one which looked like a photograph. My way of working developed from looking at a scene and slowly omitting what wasn’t important. It’s hardly rocket science, but I really loved learning to edit my own images to put in the least amount of information. What was left was what was important to me. (Hassell, 2016)
What Carlin said in her interview is true to her work, as she captures the essence of the scenes in Figures 2 and 3. The dark shadows of the terrorists in Figure 2 make them look even bigger, especially from a child’s perspective. The dark colours and emphasis on the black guns are very accurate in describing how a child will perceive this scene.
Figure 3 shows images from the Second Liberian Civil War (2003). I collected images with a similar subject matter to Laura Carlin’s illustrations. The top left shows the colourful culture of West Africa, which are all bright and clear colours, but the bullet holes tell a story of destruction and war.
The bottom left is a photograph of the women and children walking to collect essentials like food and water. On the bottom right is a typical upmarket home in Liberia, and the top right is an accurate depiction of a soldier in the Liberian Civil War from adult men and even children who were exploited to be soldiers.
What is each image expressing, describing, or communicating?
The illustration
I will now compare Laura Carlin’s illustrations (Figures 1 and 2) with the real-life photographs of the war (Figure 3).
Laura Carlin’s illustration in Figure 1 is a collage depicting Helene Cooper as a young girl in the foreground. I would imagine that this photo was an actual photo of Helene as a young girl that was cut out and used as part of the illustration.
The photo of Helene is well integrated by creating a cast shadow and repeating the black-and-white palette of the collage photo on the car, trees, and house in the background.
The yellow grass eco the playfulness of a child’s perspective, blissfully unaware of politics and what is about to happen. The vehicle tracks in the grass lead the eye to the background, and one might wonder if these tracks are the homeowner’s tracks or unwelcome intruders. The cold blue of the sky is in a solid and saturated medium and dominates the illustration to set the mood, which is cold and uncomfortable, but also represents the beautiful blue sky so well known to the African continent.
The house is pristine white, which tells me it is pure which is this child’s security and place of comfort. The people in the background might be soldiers, family members, or friends, but the viewer doesn’t know.
The trees and house are much higher on the page than the child figure, which once again brings forth the scene from a child’s perspective, where everything seems bigger and bolder.
The photos
In illustration, a story can be told in one single image. The photos in Figure 3 are all real-life images of the same scenario, but they give a more factual perception of the war. The expressions on the people’s faces tell us what they are experiencing. The photos have a lot of details that will take time to absorb, while the illustration shows only what the artist wants you to see and what is important to the story.
The two top photos in Figure 3 look like the colours were made more saturated as if the contrast settings and other image-enhancers were used to digitally enhance the scene. This gives the photos a vibrance and energy that shows the soldier’s enthusiasm and drive, as well as the bright colours typical of African culture.
The photo in the rain is more muted and more accurate to the original raw image. It captures the sombre mood and feel of the scene.
Which image do you think is most memorable?
The photo in Figure 3 with the wedding dress is the most memorable, but that doesn’t make it the best image. It’s the most memorable because, as a viewer, I have so many questions, which means the image is playing over and over in my mind while I am trying to resolve it.
Laura Carlin’s illustration, however, has intrigued me because it’s more abstract. I can relate to it by putting myself in the picture. Somehow, an illustration feels safe and relatable compared to a photo, which is more concrete and observed from a distance, as an outsider looking into a factual world of events that already happened.
Does one image seem more truthful and why?
The photos seem more truthful because they give concrete information.
Which image would you be more likely to notice if it was in a magazine or newspaper and why?
The illustration would be more likely to be noticed because it is simplified to the least amount of information, making it easier and more striking to perceive. The message and story come across clearly.
Laura Carlin further says in an interview, “I rarely get happy–themed commissions. For a long time I was receiving only editorial pieces on the darkest of subjects. I think this comes back to my interest in drawing peoples’ body language. I could suggest a mood without explicitly showing something terrible.” (Hassell, 2016)
Carlin encapsulates the significant effectiveness of a well-illustrated artwork. It can speak to an audience in a specific and unexpected way.
Works Cited
Wikipedia. (2024, April 5). Helen Cooper. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helene_Cooper
CJA. (2024, April 15). Liberia. Retrieved from The Center for Justice & Accountability: https://cja.org/where-we-work/liberia/#:~:text=Civil%20War%3A%20Part%20II%20(1997%2D2003)&text=By%202003%2C%20another%20armed%20group,a%20third%20of%20the%20country.
Hassell, L. (2016, September 6). Interview with Laura Carlin. Retrieved from Inky Goodness: https://inkygoodness.com/features/offset-sheffield-interview-laura-carlin/
Peachy Brushes 